Hobbits? They're just a little short, say sceptics

By Deborah Smith

Very short villagers who live close to where the remains of tiny, prehistoric humans were found on the Indonesian island of Flores are the descendants of these so-called hobbits, scientists say.

In a reigniting of a scientific dispute over the significance of the remains, Indonesian, Australian and American sceptics led by Teuku Jacob have published their analysis of the bones in a respected scientific journal for the first time.

They say that the hobbits were not a new species because some of their facial and bodily features are found in Rampasasa pygmies living about a kilometre from Liang Bua cave, where the bones were unearthed.

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They also argue the one-metre-tall hobbit specimen known as LB1 had a brain deformity called microcephaly. "LB1 is not a normal member of a new species, but an abnormal member of our own," said a team member, Robert Eckhardt, of Penn State University.

However, the study has not convinced other scientists, who still believe the hobbits, Homo floresiensis, represent a new species of humans.

The new evidence that LB1 was a deformed modern human was "not substantial", said Dr Colin Groves, of the Australian National University. Professor Jacob's team had started out convinced LB1 had microcephaly.

"So they find anything that remotely resembles pathology and apply it to the poor hobbit."

Mike Morwood, co-leader of the hobbit discovery team that announced the find in 2004, also disputed the sceptics' claim in the journal, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, that they had gained appropriate authority to study the precious bones. The Indonesian co-leader of the discovery team, Professor Radien Soejono, had granted permission for the remains to be transferred to Professor Jacob's laboratory at the University of Gadjah Mada University in Yogyakarta in late 2004.

But his permission was not enough, said Professor Morwood, of the University of New England. "Given that some of the Liang Bua hominid material was 'borrowed' before our team had had a chance to study it ... neither I nor my younger Indonesian colleagues agreed to [it]."

The delicate pelvis of LB1 and a jawbone crucial to the discovery team's claim that more than one hobbit lived in the cave until 12,000 years ago were badly damaged as a result of their removal.

Dr Eckhardt and team members, including Maciej Henneberg of the University of Adelaide and Alan Thorne of the Australian National University, said the discovery team had made a mistake by not comparing the hobbit remains to those of Australomelanesian people from the region.

"Comparisons of LB1 were made mostly with Homo sapiens from other geographic areas of the world, principally Europe."